Movie Review: They Shot the Piano Player

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

An excellent animated jazz docu-drama.

This film follows a writer, who goes to Brazil to research for a book he is writing about Brazilian samba-jazz. While writing this book he becomes fascinated by a pianist he has never heard of before, who he learns simply disappeared with no one knowing what happened. While this film offers various options for how this happened, we all know that is pure speculation. Yet it gives us a powerful and often disturbing look into part of South American history that will make many of us uncomfortable. This history lesson is giving in an extremely effective way and never feels like we are being lectured. Of course, as well as Brazilian history this movie also gives us a great look into the history of jazz music. This is very informative and fascinating, yet also perfectly accessible to those who are either casual jazz fans or don't know anything about the music. Much of this is told through actual interviews, which we hear the real audio from. These interviews are simply a joy to listen to and really help the story feel all the more personal to us. These interviews alone would be worth the price of admission. Naturally being a documentary about jazz, the music is also very important. Luckily the music is simply wonderful. It is such a delight to listen to this music and it is easy for us to understand why the subjects of the documentary are so passionate about it. 

This film does have its flaws though. One is casting Jeff Goldblum as the voice of the main character. While he does a good acting job, the voice we hear is so obviously the voice of Jeff Goldblum, that it can take us out of the movie and make this docu-drama feel less real to us. Another problem is that sometimes this movie will bring up interesting points and never explore them. There are moments where the film seems to allude to a connection between this music and Cinema's French New Wave. Yet the movie never truly explains what this connection is. While for cinephiles it is cool to see animated versions of scenes from such films as Breathless (1960) and The 400 Blows (1959), it is ultimately pointless and feels like it simply just pads out the runtime.   

While it is not perfect, this movie is a pure delight for both seasoned jazz fans and for newcomers to the genre.